---

British Pubs

Absolutely. I agree with my right hon. Friend that such clubs are very much at the heart of communities. The things that make pubs attractive places for people to visit are the same as the things that make people go regularly to clubs in this country. The community pub inquiry by the all-party group made 17 recommendations, including ending the duty escalator on beer; differential taxation on pump-pulled beer; and an examination of the huge contrast between supermarket prices for beer and prices in the pub. Pub prices used to be twice those of supermarkets, but they are now much greater—sometimes seven times as much—with aggressive pricing by the supermarkets. I have spoken to many landlords and landladies over the years, and a few more when preparing for this debate. I am particularly grateful for the sage advice of Steve and Chris Dilworth of The Swan with Two Necks in Pendleton, which is a successful free house in the village where I live that offers very good food and excellent real ales from the region. Steve is a CAMRA member, and knows his beer and how look after it. As a case study, I went to a very different pub in the town of Longridge, which serves pies for locals—that service is aimed at football fans—but relies very much on wet sales. Irene Nuttall is the landlady, but prefers to be called the landlord, and she is chairman of the local pub watch. I sat in the pub with her last Saturday, and listened to her encapsulate the problems. She is tied to Heineken UK, which used to be Scottish and Newcastle, for her beers, and the premises are owned by Trust Inns. I shall show the price differential between what she pays to Heineken and what she might pay if she went to a wholesaler on the free market. An 11-gallon barrel of Fosters costs £127 from Heineken, but from a wholesaler it would cost £92. Cask ales—nine or 10 gallons—cost £96 from Heineken, or £55 from a wholesaler. An 11-gallon barrel of John Smith's costs £114 from Heineken, or £88 from a wholesaler. Cases of Pils bottles cost £31 from Heineken, or £12.99 from a wholesaler. There is even a big differential between the prices of soft drinks. The tie today has the pub industry over a barrel, and penalises the tied landlord. The Select Committee on Business, Innovation and Skills and its predecessors have examined the matter several times. The Chairman of the Committee, my hon. Friend the Member for Mid-Worcestershire (Peter Luff), would have been here today had he not been chairing a meeting on a further report on the tie. We look forward to that publication, but a previous reports states:""There are strong indications that the existence of the tie pushes up prices not just to lessees but to consumers…our provisional view is that the tie should be severely limited to ensure there is proper competition in the market.""